Light vs bexio

Why finance teams choose Light over bexio

bexio is very good at what it is: business software for Swiss small businesses, start-ups and the self-employed. Quotes and invoices with QR-bills and automated dunning, automatic reconciliation with over 60 Swiss banks, payment orders sent to your e-banking after approval, the VAT return and year-end closing, Swissdec-certified payroll, a free seat for your fiduciary and AI that reads receipts and proposes the posting. For one Swiss company it is a coherent, well-priced stack.

Its design is one company per account. Light is built for the point where that stops being true: several entities, several currencies, one ledger. Consolidation runs continuously instead of at year-end, cards, AP, AR and payments sit inside the ledger rather than around it, and agents carry out the routine work within controls you define, in Switzerland and in every country the group operates in.

From one Swiss company to a group

In bexio each company is its own account with its own chart of accounts, VAT settings and bank accounts (help.bexio.com, accessed 2026-09-17), and the whole ledger of that company is kept in one base currency: foreign-currency invoices and bills convert on entry, realised exchange differences post at payment, and unrealised ones are booked by hand. Group consolidation is not among bexio's published functions, so the group picture is something you build from the accounts, usually in a spreadsheet.

On Light there is nothing to assemble. The Swiss AG, the German GmbH and the UK Ltd post into the same ledger, intercompany eliminations and currency translation apply as transactions happen, and you can drill from the group figure straight down to the source document.

Cards, payments and the fiduciary

bexio has real answers here, and they are worth crediting. bexio Pay issues virtual and physical debit cards with Apple Pay and Google Pay, pays without fees in 20+ currencies, and posts transactions into bexio; the cards run on a partner account at amnis (bexio.com/en-CH/bexio-pay, accessed 2026-09-17). Supplier payments become payment orders that your Swiss e-banking executes once approved. Your Treuhänder gets a free seat in the account.

The pattern is the same each time: the card, the payment and the books are connected systems that agree with each other. On Light they are one system. Cards are issued from the ledger, vendor payments execute on local rails in more than 80 countries from the ledger, receipts are captured in Slack, Teams and email, and your fiduciary gets live access to the ledger and reports with a full audit trail instead of a period-end export.

Where bexio fits

A Swiss company with one legal entity, Swiss customers and Swiss banks, whose bookkeeping runs with its Treuhänder, has a genuine case for bexio and would gain little by switching. The calculation changes with the second entity, the first foreign subsidiary, or a finance team that wants the close, the consolidation and the controls to be the product. That is the point at which the second account, the spreadsheet consolidation and the wait for the close start costing more than the software, and the case for Light.

Frequently asked questions

Is Light an alternative to bexio?

For a group, yes: one ledger for every entity, continuous consolidation, cards, AP, AR and payments in the same system, with agents running the work. For a single Swiss company whose bookkeeping sits with its fiduciary, bexio remains a sound choice.

We are a Swiss company with a new subsidiary abroad. Can bexio handle that?

bexio is built around one Swiss company per account, with Swiss VAT, Swiss bank interfaces and Swissdec payroll. A foreign subsidiary means a second account, and that entity's local VAT, banks and payroll sit outside the design. Light runs the Swiss parent and the foreign subsidiaries in one ledger, on local payment rails in 80+ countries, and consolidates them continuously.

Can we keep working with our Treuhänder on Light?

Yes. Your fiduciary gets real-time access to the ledger and reports instead of period-end exports, so questions get answered against live data. The advisory relationship stays; the waiting for a batch does not.

Does Light cover Swiss requirements?

Light runs Swiss entities with local payment rails and VAT handling in the same ledger as the rest of the group, and holds SOC 1 Type 2 and SOC 2 Type 2 reports. Which Swiss specifics you need, QR-bill handling and the MWST return among them, and how the handover to your fiduciary should work, is worth walking through concretely in a demo.